Teen With Replica BB Gun Sends Watsonville High School Into Lockdown

A Watsonville high school went into lockdown on Thursday afternoon after a 17-year-old boy allegedly brandished a replica BB gun that at first appeared to be a handgun, a police sergeant said.

Police dispatch received a report of a handgun brandished in the area of Bridge and Blackburn streets near the Watsonville High School baseball field around 12:10 p.m. Thursday, Sgt. Michael Ridgway said.

The person who made the report said he had tried to stop a fight between a female and a teenage boy, who appeared to have brandished a handgun, Ridgway said.

The caller had followed the armed boy and said he entered the high school campus, according to Ridgway. Arriving officers surrounded the area and placed the school on lockdown, he said. The school’s security personnel and a resource officer spotted the suspect near the campus pool, Ridgway said.

The suspect fled on foot to Lincoln Street just outside the school, where officers stopped and arrested him, according to Ridgway. Officers found a replica BB gun in a planter box that the teen allegedly discarded, police said.

The replica gun had been modified to appear as a handgun and the barrel was drilled out to look like a high-caliber handgun, according to police. The BB gun also did not have an orange tip on the barrel, police said.

The teen, who was not a student of the school, was arrested and booked into county juvenile hall on suspicion of brandishing an imitation gun, trespassing on school grounds with a gun, resisting arrest and modifying an imitation gun, according to police.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call Watsonville police dispatch at (831) 471-1151 or investigations bureau at (831) 768-3352. Anonymous tips can be made by calling at (831) 768-3544.

--Bay City News

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